"To arms! To arms!" cried Berger, raising his arms on high in wild joyousness. "At last! at last! Thanks, Great Spirit!"
He turned away from the window, seized the count, whom curiosity had roused from his terror, by the breast, and shaking him with perfect fury, he cried:
"Do you hear, coward? to arms! A whole nation calls to arms! Women and children! Now all the old debts shall be paid that you and the like of you have contracted for the last thirty years!"
He pushed the half-dead man contemptuously from him, opened the door, and rushed out.
He ran against an officer, who was just about to enter.
It was Prince Waldenberg.
"Pardon me, father, if I cannot keep my promise to accompany you to the princess," said the prince, out of breath; "but you hear the rebellion is out again. I expect every moment to hear the drums beat."
The count was still quite beside himself from the encounter with Berger. He stared at the prince with a pale, disturbed countenance.
"What is the matter, father?" asked the prince, who now only noticed the change in his appearance.
"Go to the devil with your father, sir," cried the count, in whom the wild hatred he had cherished for so many years against his wife's son at last broke out into full fury. "I am not your father. I do not choose to be your father. If you wish to see your father go to your mother. You will find him there!"